However, it wasn't long before Bastion noticed that something was off. His sword met no resistance when he cut down some cultists.
He could understand that his sword came with a nano-molecular edge, which allowed it to slice between molecules with ease, essentially making it one of the sharpest tools in the universe.
However, no matter how sharp, some level of force was needed to cut through a given body, but he felt no resistance at all.
He would attribute it to his absurd strength, but even he would still notice that slight resistance before he overwhelmed it—yet some of them didn't have that.
"Are they illusions?" Bastion thought to himself.
He also noticed something else: these cultists seemed to avoid him. The more mutated they were, the more they ran from his presence, as though he was a walking WMD or something.
However, there were some that ran headfirst against him. Some magically got erased before they could even reach him, while some did, but he felt no resistance cutting them down.
"Let's try this again," Bastion said for some reason, as his golden pupils flickered with some unknown light.
He withdrew his sword and simply stood amidst the chaos and just observed. This would one hundred percent get anyone who tried it killed; however, he felt that he would be okay based on a number of observations.
As he stood, it was as though the entire world suddenly slowed down as he observed the battlefield. The cultists were everywhere; they numbered in the millions or so.
However, the more he looked, the less it added up. If he were a god of the Ruinous Powers and was raising a cult, these numbers seemed acceptable. However, these numbers were also impossible to hide, especially from the sensors.
So something was definitely up… Cults don't rise overnight, especially considering how most of them are well-equipped. That fact alone made it so that cults spent years brooding and planning.
They would gather weapons, supplies, etc., before they then staged an uprising. And according to what he had read from the Mechanicus Archives,
this cult behavior didn't exactly fit normal cult behavior, so this was definitely something else. However, he couldn't deny that it was most likely the work of Chaos or influenced heavily by it.
Apart from that, he was also interested in one other thing. As he stood, he turned to look at a giant creature whose origin he didn't know.
No matter how he looked at it, it didn't look human or as though it had originated from a human body through mutations.
It looked like some misshapen bird—a vulture or something—its wings shone like prisms in white light. In its hand was a staff that shone and cracked with lightning.
Staring at it, Bastion felt a great level of danger, but some confidence remained. He could feel that whatever this creature was, it was incredibly dangerous.
Just staring at it, and he could feel the static—the white noise he had been hearing or sensing since the battle began—increased dramatically.
It was deafening, but he could understand why. He gripped his sword tightly but remained as he was.
The last thing he would ever do is act in acknowledgment of a lesser being like a daemon… Be they a Greater Daemon or not.
They will forever remain below humanity, the glorious sons of God.
"What are you?" Bastion asked calmly.
Ignoring the chaos around him, he could see lightning and bullets flying around, but none touched or bothered him.
Now that he thought about it, nothing the daemons had thrown at him had affected him so far, and this vulture-thing before him would be the test to find out why.
"Ah, the masquerading martyr—Governor, Saint, charlatan. Cloaked in divine farce, you fester with false sanctity," the creature said with immense pride.
However, Bastion could see its expression twist in pain the closer it got. That expression had appeared the very second it got within a hundred meters of him.
Meaning that whatever effect was taking place started there or became more pronounced within that range. It also made sense because most cultists and lesser daemons seemed to avoid him from that range.